Loose in Papua

Ibable Tripe

[?]y Reporter is Loose in Papua

ladies and gentlemen, is imple of the indescribable ich Australian newspapers, with Pacific Islands ;o often serve up for the on of their readers. This the Sydney Daily Tele / November 9 and it is d, “By Michael Fitz- Daily Telegraph special tative, who will report e’s visit to New Guinea”: MORESBY, Thurs.—The af Edinburgh won’t have el before King Metakaka •and to-day Government jre are sighing with re letakaka, 65-y e a r-o 1 d chief of the Trobriand ie only king in all New pua—has sent the word resby by drumbeat across of sea and gnarled that he would welcome on his arrival here on norning. ent officials were worried. , women, and children on their knees in King presence, i only stand when the ?al stately figure, stands above their head level, nt the Duke, too ?rn m e n t official was ent to the Trobriands. to the King, explained like th<e Duke, was a or to New Guinea and he King should not in •malities that the Duke . not insist on.

King Metakaka thought it over.

Now he has sent drumbeat word that he agrees, and that he, his 13 wives, his jester, and his food taster will attend the Government House reception provided “the food is tasted by my taster first.”

Mr. D. M. Cleland, the Terri tories Administrator, told me: “The King is very wise. It looked sticky for a bit, but now everything is all right”

No doubt it was written by Mr.

Fitzgerald as a silly spoof. It is silly enough; but there are hundreds who might think it true.

Residents of Papua need no as surances; but for the information of readers elsewhere it should be said that there is no “king” in the Trobriand Islands; that, if there is a hereditary chief there, he almost certainly is a well-informed and courteous man; and not the kind of African jungle freak that is de scribed in the imaginative reporter ; that communication between the Trobriands—a parti y-Polynesian “pocket” just off the Papuan coast —is regularly maintained by the usual radio and not by drum-beat; and that the description of the Trobriand chiefs party is so silly as to be libellous.

Why do these half-fledged re porters, visiting the South Pacific Islands for the first time, so often try to maintain the fallacy that conditions there to-day are as they might have been in Darkest Africa c. century ago? t Mr. Peter Brooks, well known Eng lish resident of Tahiti and former proprietor of the Teva Hotel, Papeari District, recently travelled to New Zealand. It is understood that he does not intend returning to Tahiti.